It made sense that he should never again try to visit the nuns from St. Theresa's Orphanage, where he had been raised. Ditto his fellow cops from the old precinct. But one of the things he was absolutely never supposed to do was come to Newark's Wildwood Cemetery and sit on the frozen ground and stare at his own headstone.
Two out of three wasn't bad.
In his defense he had a lot on his mind these days. And although most people wouldn't have the opportunity to know it, sometimes your own grave was the best spot to sit and sort through life's real important stuff.
It was the third week of February, and already most of the winter snow had been chased away. In another month it would be gone completely, wiped from the landscape by warming sun and drenching rain. The exposed ground was brown and cracked. Leaves from autumns past rotted to compost at the sturdy concrete base of the nearby wrought-iron fence.
The surface leaves were frozen stiff. Remo could smell beyond them, to the rich loam being born beneath. Deeper still, he could feel the worms twist in their winter slumber. High above the ground the soft scent of pines carried to his nostrils. His sensitive ears registered the flicking movements of the farthermost wind-tossed needles.
So was it to be trained in Sinanju. Even in the dead heart of winter, the world was still a vibrant living thing.
Although Remo was aware of all that was going on around him, he did not allow it to distract him from his thoughts.
He was trying to sort through something. Just what exactly, he had no idea. He thought it might have something to do with his last assignment.
A few days ago, Remo had been sent to California to pull the plug on an old Soviet superweapon that had somehow fallen into the hands of a group of radical peaceniks. That the first thing they had done upon acquiring such a device was blow the hell out of everything they aimed it at was an irony completely lost on these aging pacifists.
While on this assignment Remo had been stunned to encounter an old flame, a beautiful Russian agent who had also been sent to defuse the situation. Bumping into Anna Chutesov after more than ten years would not have been so shocking had Remo not thought her dead. She wasn't. And as was the case with most things in Remo's life these days, complications had ensued.
Sitting alone in Wildwood Cemetery, pale white moonlight shining down across his shoulders, the cold wind snaking around his lean frame like the tendrils of some invisible beast, Remo pictured Anna Chutesov.
The real Anna had looked pretty much the same as he remembered her, yet it was her younger face he now summoned.
She came to him in his mind's eye. Icy blue eyes, blond hair, strong cheekbones. An ageless beauty. There was a time when he thought he loved her. Now she was just another face.
Nope. The something he was after didn't have anything to do with the Russian agent.
He placed her mental image carefully aside.
It was a frustrating process. There was something he felt he should know, something he should do. Yet the more he tried the more certain he was that he was just forcing it further and further away. But it was important.
The feeling that there was something big looming on the horizon had first come to him in California. It was a moment come and gone. Now it was like trying to remember a dream.
After leaving California two days ago, there had been a brief side trip to Russia in order to take care of some unfinished business. He had only returned to U.S. soil late the previous afternoon.
Once he'd landed in New York, Remo had sent his teacher back to Folcroft while he came out to the cemetery alone. To think.
Afternoon had long since bled into the postmidnight hours, yet Remo felt no closer to an answer.
Maybe it was nothing. His life hadn't exactly been a piece of cake lately. And according to a source he didn't really care to think about at the moment, it was only going to get worse. Maybe that's all this was. An unconscious concern for what might be.
After a few more minutes of trying to chase an inchoate thought around his brain, he finally threw up his hands.
"Ah, hell," Remo grumbled.
With a feeling of deep frustration he unscissored his legs and rose to his feet.
Even though he had sat in the same position for more than ten hours, there was no crack of bone or strain of tired muscle. With just a simple fluid motion he was up.
Dark eyes read the name etched on his headstone one last time before he turned abruptly away.
He had taken not a single step before he heard a sound.
The creaking of a gate. Hurried footfalls scuffed a gravel path. Hushed, nervous voices carried to his ears.
Remo's internal clock told him that it was 2:37 in the morning. Not a likely time for anyone to be paying a visit to the grave of a departed loved one.
Curiosity piqued, he took to the path. On silent feet he followed the sounds of the voices.
The path led through a knot of sighing pines and up a short incline. By the time Remo came to the top of the hill, a fresh sound had reached his ears. It was a grinding of stone on stone followed by a heavy muted thud.
Dodging moonlight, Remo came up beside a granite angel. The statue's wings were folded back, and the fingertips of its delicate hands brushed together in eternal prayer.
Ahead, more headstones dotted the landscape. Remo saw three figures slipping between the distant headstones.
Although it was dark, Remo's eyes took in enough ambient light to make it seem as bright as midday. The three intruders were older boys. Probably no further along than sophomores in high school. Breaking away from his companions, one of the boys crouched and vanished from sight. Remo heard a sharp rattling noise, followed by a faint hissing. Remo recognized the sounds.
As he watched, the other two walked up to a big grave marker. Giggling nervously, they planted their shoulders against its rough side. Grunting at the effort, they shoved the stone off its base. It thumped heavily back to the cold ground. Panting happily, they moved on to the next grave.
The dark lines of Remo's angular face grew hard. Leaving his stone angel to her private supplications, he darted across the frozen ground.
Delicate crusts of ice had formed on the surface of the few patches of snow that yet clung to the ground. Where Remo came in contact with them, the soles of his loafers didn't even crack the crystalline veneer.
The boys failed to notice his approach. He halted a few yards from the trio of vandals, a shadow among shadows.
As he'd suspected, the crouching boy held a can of spray paint in his hand. He was in the process of painting a dripping swastika on the front of a big stone marker.
While the first boy worked, the other two laughed anxiously as they put their backs against another headstone.
Unseen by the trio of youths, Remo's face grew cold.
Increasingly this kind of desecration was becoming common. In years gone by it would have been big news if a cemetery was vandalized. Certainly statewide. Maybe even nationally. Now it barely rated a blurb on the local news.
Remo decided that it was high time someone spoke up for all the voiceless dead out there.
His expression more fixed than any name carved in granite, Remo slipped through the shadows toward the boys.
"Hurry up," one of the youths urged, laughing. He already had his shoulder braced against the next stone in line. His companion quickly joined him. As before, the two boys pushed in unison.
Although they put all their weight against it, this time something was different. This time when they shoved, the headstone seemed to shove back.
With a pair of startled grunts, the two boys toppled over onto their backs. The wind rushed from their lungs.
"What're you doing?" the kid with the spray can asked when he saw the others rolling on the ground. Not terribly imaginative, he was painting yet another swastika.